E3 2001

It was definitely a mixed day with some very impressive games, a few lows and some surprises. The biggest game that wowed me was Binary Code at the Sega booth. It’s a new squad-based third-person shooter by the team that did Yakuza. It’s surprisingly innovative, using in depth voice commands to direct your two squadmates. In addition, your squad will direct you as well, telling you to flank left or right or move into position. Throw in a destructable robots that show and are affected by damage to certain body parts and this could potentially be one of the smartest shooters to come along in a while. I just hope the voice command works effectively.

Other highs that I saw were, of course, Modern Warfare 3, XCOM (that had a drastic overhaul since last year and is now more strategy based), SoulCalibur V (I like the direction the team is taking the game in.) and Batman Arkham City (With a playable Catwoman tossed into the mix, this could top the original).

The low points were Centipede, which I had high hopes for, but it never got off the ground, and Prototype 2. I really wanted to see something drastically different, but other than the improved combat system, I didn’t see enough. I wish that Radical Entertainment leveraged the new character Sgt. James Heller’s military background to offer some more variation to the power fantasy gameplay the team wishes to offer.

I also did manage to snag a few pics of random booth babes for those of you asking for them.